Comment on Data centers need electricity, utilities need years to build – who should pay?
mimreos@piefed.social 4 days ago
As pointed out in the article, because datacenters are pretty fast to build, new power plants need to start construction roughly 1 year before the datacenter starts construction. But that leaves the utilities with alle the risk, unless a robust agreement is in place with the datacenter.
What happens if several power plants start construction, but the AI bubbles bursts, and the datacenters are cancelled?
But that leaves the utilities with alle the risk,
Not if you make the data center pay for it.
If a consumer wants a utility upgrade, the consumer pays all costs upfront. I know this because my neighbor works for the power company and was trying to get gas lines run to our neighborhood. The cost the power company would charge us was hundreds of thousands which even divided by the number of homes meant it would never pay off vs outlr existing cost for propane delivery.
(Made my day that somebody read the article! I feel like these technical pieces flounder in obscurity.)
humancrayon@sh.itjust.works 4 days ago
Then we get the actual capacity we need at the prices we can afford. Our power grid is disappointing.
otacon239@lemmy.world 4 days ago
Are you suggesting we use government resources to benefit the masses? Whose side are you on anyway?
humancrayon@sh.itjust.works 3 days ago
Damn the man, save the Empire.